


it feels like falling, it feels like rain (like losing my balance again and again)

by fangirl_screaming



Category: The Last Kids on Earth (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apocalypse, Based on a Tumblr Post, End of the World, F/M, Fainting, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Im not sure tho, Jack Needs a Hug, Mild Fluff, Not Canon Compliant, Pain, Post-Season/Series 03, Title from a Sleeping At Last Song, Whump, Winter, a small dash of pining at the end, as a treat, bLU I'M SO SORRY AJGDGJHSF, i sure hope it is not, kind of, no beta we die like my attention span in quarantine, sullitoro - Freeform, you guys can have a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28795401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_screaming/pseuds/fangirl_screaming
Summary: Jack wakes up in the middle of the night with a sharp pain.The battle may be over for now, but the pain that follows is just starting.
Relationships: June Del Toro & Jack Sullivan, June Del Toro/Jack Sullivan, and everyone else - Relationship, im not gonna tag them one by one because they're really minor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this](https://thembo-jack-sullivan.tumblr.com/post/638958392957960192/its-done-my-emotional-turmoil-has-come-to-a) edit by thembo-jack-sullivan on tumblr. hope i could do it justice!!
> 
> title from "sorrow" by sleeping at last.

Jack jolts awake with a sudden wave of pain on his right side, and yelps. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to breathe deep; in and out, in and out, in and out. Tears prick the corner of his eyes. He doesn’t even dare turn his head or move at all, it will only hurt more, he guesses so. His scars shine dimly, yet they’re quite noticeable in the pitch black darkness of his room.

Nothing works. The pain’s still there.

The intense pain is like fire licking through his veins and scorching everything it passes by, all the way from the wound on his right wrist to his face. The pain sears through his skin, and this time he lets himself scream louder, not caring if he wakes anyone up. It burns and it pricks every inch the scars branch throughout his body, thousands of heated needles feel like they’re stabbed into his right side.

It hurts, it hurts, oh god it hurts _so much._

Rezzoch’s voice; a ruthless memory, a taunting echo, a malevolent visitor from the past, runs through his mind. He can’t pick apart what she’s saying, it sounds like a foreign language he’s never even heard of; or maybe she’s not saying anything at all, maybe she’s just here to make clanquor just to mock his pain more.

His ears start ringing and his vision spins. He can barely feel the warm wetness of hot tears streaming from the sides of his face; the pain blinds, numbs, leaves him senseless. The rest of his limbs are paralyzed, there’s this weird static chewing on his bones as it spreads.

Air is knocked out of his lungs and suddenly, he can’t breathe. Panic swells in his stomach. His lungs feel heavy, his heart hammers in his chest as he struggles to take a breath. His body stops cooperating. Sobs that are gathering in his throat twist his windpipe into a tight knot, and it’s so, so painful. He can’t breathe.

_Why can’t he breathe?!_

“JACK!” Someone—June—yells, and he can barely see three people kneeling beside him. He turns his head left to face his friends. They’re nothing more than blurry figures, his tears befog his vision.

“Wake Bardle and Skaelka up!” she commands, her voice cracking, “I’ll stay next to him! Hurry!” Two of the figures leave the room, and she turns to him.

“I-it hurts,” Jack manages to let out a pathetic whimper. “It hurts so much.” A particularly painful wave washes over his arm and it paralyzes his thoughts for a single second, it’s enough to nearly knock him out. He shouts again.

“Just h-hold on just a little longer, ”June responds, her voice almost pleading, and the boy can see tears glimmering in her eyes with the dim rays of the moon’s light reflecting off of them. Her face has panic and concern written all over it. “Help’s on the way, Dirk and Quint went to get Bardle and Skaelka. They’ll be back any second now.” Jack can barely comprehend her words, her voice mixes with the agonizing ringing. He lets out another shout which quickly turns into a sob.

“H-here!” Something quickly wraps around his left hand, and he feels his hand being gently squeezed. “If i-it’s getting too much to bear, you can squeeze my hand.”

The boy’s lips curl slightly upwards as a form of the best “Thank you” he can muster up at the moment. Another wave strikes, and he catches her hand. His grip tightens. The pain is far from completely dimmed, yet her hand—squeezing back in an attempt of comfort—makes it a little more tolerable. Just a little bit.

Thankfully, not long after, more people enter the room; and just as he feels himself being lifted onto a sedan, he slips into unconsciousness.


	2. ii

The hot, searing pain has finally eased into a numb, throbbing ache; Jack notices as he gains his consciousness back. The blinding white lights of… wherever the hell he is shines right in his eyes. There are slimy plants over where his scars are, they press down against his skin and cool it down, like lava crashing with a block of ice. They feel quite nice against his feverish nerves, actually (despite the sharp and stomach-twisting smell).

On his right, there’s Bardle, one of his hands loom over his bare arm while the other one holds an open spell book. His eyes are closed, he’s chanting this weird incantation under his breath over and over again, the language doesn’t sound like anything similar to what he knows as language at all (but of course, Jack doesn’t have the guts to say that to Bardle’s face). However, even though he’s barely awake, he can tell that it’s working because his free hand glows the same color as the plants all over his right side. A semi-transparent lilac.

On his other side, there are his friends. Quint has a hand on his shoulder, his brows furrowed in concern and fear, his lips fined down into a thin line. His gaze scans him anxiously and even though he’s blacking out quite often, he can still see the tears that glimmer in the corner of his eyes.

Right beside the dark skinned boy is Dirk, whose gaze switches rapidly between Quint and June, who—Jack can read from his expression despite his hazy vision—is too scared to look at his face. One of his large hands is on the curly-haired boy’s shoulders, gently rubbing them in attempt to soothe him; and the other one is on the girl’s back, presumably doing the same.

June.

The wet streaks down her face gleam with the soft light of Bardle’s workshop, and she’s shaking. Both of her hands are wrapped around his left hand, they squeeze tight, and her forehead is rested against them. She’s taking deep breaths between prayers to calm herself down, but the boy can’t tell if it’s working or not. He hopes so. It’s painful enough to see her sad for whatever reason on a normal occasion already, but seeing her cry is even worse.

The glowing on Bardle’s hands and the slimy things over his side slowly dim down, and with a snap of Bardle’s fingers, he feels himself getting surrendered to the claws of sleep yet again.


	3. iii

Jack opens his eyes as sunshine leaks into the garage Bardle set his workshop in, and groans. Thankfully, the pain in his arm has greatly calmed down, but it’s his throat this time. (“ _I guess that’s what happens when you scream so loud all night,”_ he thinks to himself.) The garage—probably because it has no built-in heating—is frigid, it probably isn’t the best place to be in when the unforgiving winter of Wakefield is slowly making itself more and more at home.

“Good morning. Feeling better?” A tired voice asks him, and he turns his head to see June sitting on the couch next to where he’s laying down on. Her eyes are bloodshot and have light bags under her eyes, her voice strains. His sleepy expression quickly turns into concern.

“Yeah,” he quickly responds, “but are _you_ okay? You look like you battled an entire hoard of zombies overnight!” The girl makes a noise that may or may not have been a chuckle.

“Well, I stayed up all night, since I couldn’t really sleep anyway.” Silence sinks between them, like fog settling over a city overnight.

Something suddenly strikes him.

He turns back to June, who’s started looking out the window, and confirms his realization: she doesn’t have her signature cardigan on, even though the garage is practically freezing.

He only then notices the warmth wrapped around his shoulders.

Just like her, it smells faintly like vanilla (French vanilla, to be exact). Blood tints his cheeks, and his heart starts beating faster as a warm, fuzzy feeling spreads inside him, replacing the cold and hollow one.

“Uh, June?” The girl turns to him as he hands her cardigan back to her and wow, it’s even harder to make eye contact. He looks away. “I guess this is yours?”

She cocks her head to the side, a confused smile on her face. “I know? I gave it to you myself last night, silly.”

The want to scream (internally) at himself dawns on the boy.

“Uh… thank you, but w-what I mean is,” he continues, “you should probably take it back. Since, y’know, it was on me and it should be on you because it’s yours and you must be cold…”

Yeah, this is probably what Quint meant when he said Jack wasn’t the best with words that one time.

The girl he likes gives him her jacket so that he can stay warm, completely disregarding her own comfort, and all he has to say is a curt “Thank you” followed by unnecessary rambling. Very smooth, Jack Sullivan, very smooth.

June giggles as he takes the cardigan from him, there’s a brief exchange of glances as their hands brush against each other. “Uh, thanks?” Her tone sounds more like a question.

There’s a little more silence and the boy starts slightly regretting giving the cardigan back. Without the slight warmth the cardigan was providing, the garage basically feels like a slightly larger deep freezer. He shivers, his teeth chattering from the cold, and wraps his arms around himself.

“Hey. If you’re that cold without the cardigan, we can… uh… share? If you want?” Jack can’t tell if it’s from the cold or from embarrassment, but there’s a vague tint of pink over June’s cheeks.

“Sure!” _Wait, that sounded too eager._ “I-I mean, if you’re cool with it, then so am I.” He scoots a little bit towards the edge of the makeshift bed he’s laying on to make room for the girl. She sits down, they’re shoulder to shoulder and both of them have a foot on the ground to prevent themselves from falling down. June shrouds the cardigan over their backs. The sleeves barely reach their shoulders, so they have to hold and pull from the cuffs to keep it on.

He feels her cold hand under his.

He can feel her breath vaguely brushing against his mouth.

They are so close to each other it’s _unreal_.

June must have noticed it too, the blush over her cheeks and nose is definitely more apparent (Jack does count the possibility that it may also be because of how the temperature, but he prefers not to think about that). She’s looking away towards the ground, it’s kind of obvious she’s trying to avoid his gaze.

 _‘Okay, this is your time to make a move! You saw how she looks at you from time to time, you heard how she spoke to you at Funland, you held her hand for Rover’s sake! This is the perfect chance!’_ His heart skips a few beats at the thought, and a warm tingle spreads throughout his chest.

 _‘But I can’t,’_ he argues with the voice in head, _‘I don’t want to lose the friendship we have over… over things I might be way overthinking about! O-or she might not be ready for this!’_

_‘How will you know if she’s not ready? Come on, at least try!’_

With an inaudible grunt of defeat, he replies. _‘Okay, fine!_ ’ He glances at her, his heart racing even faster. His gaze scans her placid expression, from the freckles that spread through her cheeks, to her chapped lips.

“Hey, June?” he says, before the last piece of common sense he has chickens him out. The girl’s amber eyes look up, and their eyes meet. There’s no going back now.

“Listen, I’ve been meaning to tell you something for a while.” Deep breath. “June, I-“

The doors to the garage open with a loud “swoosh”, and the fireplace across where the duo is sitting lights up with purple flames.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything?” Bardle’s gruff voice speaks, and they separate. June quickly whips her cardigan away and returns to her seat next to Jack’s mattress. She pulls her knees to herself and turns her head towards the window.

 _‘You know what,’_ he muses to himself bitterly, _‘maybe it’s better if I don’t say it.’_ The only remarkable sounds throughout the checkup are the fire cracking, and the wizard’s occasional hums as his eyes scan his scars. Not a word is spoken for a while.

“Here.” He hands Jack a small vial full of a bright fuchsia elixir. “You can drink this if your scars hurt again. If the elixir doesn’t work, you can come by. Hopefully, the pain attacks after this one will hurt less… if there is going to be any more, that is.” The boy pockets the small bottle, and thanks the wizard with a coy smile.

The duo departs from the garage after saying goodbye to Bardle. The gusty and cold winter wind brushes against their bodies and snow crunches under their feet as they walk towards the treehouse. June’s walking in front of Jack with her hands in her cardigan’s pockets. She walks with brisk and careful steps, her gaze scanning the empty streets just in case they get ambushed or something. It’s quiet for the most part.

He quietly sighs, his breath forming a small puff that quickly disappears.

 _‘I’ll tell her another day,’_ he thinks to himself. _‘Yeah. Another day.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! hope you enjoyed it :D


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